Sanguine Falls

Part VII

It was the same room. She could tell that before her eyes were fully open. It smelled of dust. Fearing pain, her muscles clenched, bracing for endurance, but there was nothing and her tension faded. Her muscles systematically released, easing. Her eyes flickered open to stare at the wood beams of the ceiling and she turned, with some difficulty onto her side. Her body felt heavy, clumsy. It was as if she had been transported into another version of her body that was simply too large, too heavy for her to effectively move around in.

She was still wearing her own clothes; no one had touched her. There was some comforting reassurance in that.

Pressing her palms flat to the floor she forced herself up onto unsteady feet. Her body felt weighty, underused as if she'd been abed for a long time. She staggered toward the shoji doors. There was light beyond them and she looked to see what it was, where she was. She pressed her ear to the door and listened.

Silence.

It seemed as if nothing was on there, but there was warm yellow light shining on the paper panes on the opposite side of the doors. She slid her fingers into the slot and pulled; but the door caught, it clicked, and refused to budge.

It wouldn't open.

She tried again, and then the other door but neither would move. Raising her hand to the paper screen she pressed her nails against it but the surface was firm, hard.

It wasn't paper at all.

It was solid.

She struck her fist against it and winced at the pain. They were solid wood panes. She was stuck. Walking back to her table, she sat down, curling her legs beneath her appropriately. There was nothing in the room. She took a quick inventory: table, futon mat, her, and… a cup. She frowned and reached for it.

It was heavy.

Full.

She knew what would be in it… that horrible flashback, that had been real, hadn't it? The room was real; she was still sitting in it. No, maybe she was a monster but she was not drinking that.

It was gross.

It was blood.

It had come from the inside of someone's body.

It was… dirty.

She pushed the cup away and laid her head down on the hard wood surface. What was she supposed to do? She was too weak to fight the doors, her throat was strangely raw. Oddly enough, she didn't feel compelled to scream for help. She knew, somewhere within, that no one would come and she wasn't a damsel in distress. Something about waiting to be rescued always seemed like such a horrible way to die. It meant one was helpless and she hated being helpless.

There was something wrong, though. It was a sort of tingling that she couldn't feel. A mental tingling, a warning, perhaps. Something was going to happen, something that was bad. She waited, dreaded, could she stop it? What was it? Had she gained some awesome psychic power?

When the first flash of pain weaved its way through her belly like an ugly parasitic worm slithering beneath her skin, she felt nauseous. When the second hit and spread as though that worm had divided into two worms she began to dry heave. She slid her arms off the table and hung her head low, toward the carpet. Saliva dripped from her mouth as she coughed and hacked and nothing came up. Powerful, muscular contractions grabbed her stomach and squeezed and it made it feel like her head was floating each time the awful pressure released.

"You're supposed to drink it."

She didn't turn at the sound of the voice. "No," she protested weakly. "Gross."

"You'll die without it." He paused. "Are you that weak?"

"… not... weak!" she had her hand over her mouth as she turned, slowly, clumsily, to face him. Her skin was pasty compared to his paleness. A gray compared to white…

Ugly.

She leaned down to press her forehead against the tatami. "Leave me alone," she moaned softly.

"I thought you wanted this," he started. She could hear his footsteps, soft as they were, moving toward the locked doors. "Didn't you scream for me?"

She lifted her head and turned to peer at him. His back was to her. It was straight, as she remembered him. His shoulders wide, his hips narrow, his legs long… but he'd denied it… he…

"You told me that you weren't my Aoshi-sama."

"I'm not. I'm not that human man you loved anymore. You aren't the human girl you were just two days ago."

She dropped her head. "I know. I know," she repeated weakly. "I'm a monster. An ugly monster…"

"Drink from the cup or leave my side."

She looked up, but he was gone.

Leave his side?

Leave Aoshi-sama?

Never.

"There's no sign of her. No one has seen anything."

They were all there.

Shiro.

Kuro.

Omasu.

Okon.

Okina.

They stood around the sitting old man in the middle, worried expressions upon their faces. "What can we really do? I mean, if we can't find her?" Omasu asked.

Okina dropped his head toward his chest. "I don't think we can do anything at all. I don't think she's coming back. The blood on her futon is most worrying, how did she become injured? We removed all sharp objects from her room, didn't we?"

"We did, Kuro and I," Shiro answered. "I didn't see anything up there when I first when up but the window is still open. There was no blood on the floor or on the roof, but I presume that's how she escaped."

The others agreed. She hadn't sneaked through the house to get outside. "Any reports of her from yesterday?"

"Yes, one. She apparently had a bizarre interaction with a merchant in town by a fruit stand. She said something about knocking them over, the merchant was confused as he said Misao was standing several feet away and seemed to be having a conversation with someone who wasn't there. Then she turned and jumped into the back of a moving straw cart and that was the last he saw of her."

"How does this happen?" Okina murmured. "How did she get so bad off? What happened to her?"

If she drank, the pain wouldn't come.

If she drank, the pain that was there would go away.

Drinking the horrid liquid freed her, it energized her, it… infused her.

She turned and looked toward the doors. Climbing to her feet she felt that the heavy, clumsy feeling of her body had faded into a rather strange lightness of step. She felt, she thought, just the slightest bit tipsy. The cup, she noted, had been larger than the last…

Though she'd been trying to deny it to herself she couldn't forever. She knew the metallic, red color liquid in the glass was blood. She was drinking blood, from someone's body into her mouth. It made her shudder with disgust, but it eased her pain and the pain was encompassing. She'd never known a sensation like it and never wanted to know it again. Despite the little she knew, she was certain it was a horrible way to die.

Raising her hand to the door, she took a calming breath, and thought her lungs felt odd. Almost like blowing air into an origami cube… crackly. The warm firelight was still visible through the solid-paper looking panes. Expecting it to be locked still, she pulled gently and was surprised when the door, lightly weighted, slid open for her.

She pressed her forehead to the door and peeked around with one eye. There was a fire and a little table and… him. Raising her hand to the door, she abruptly shoved it open.

Aoshi-sama.

He turned his head just slightly and regarded her. Standing a moment in his gaze and in the intense silence, she felt herself sort of stumble in. She collapsed across from him, her knees, her body not feeling weak though she knew she appeared that way.

"Am I sick?" she asked lowering her hands to her palms. Her head was all mixed up. She was confused, lost. "Omasu said I was."

"No," he answered almost at once. "You are no longer ill."

There was no gasp of surprise. No argument. She remained where she sat, hunched, her head dipped low.

"Was I going crazy? Am I still? What did you do to me?" She irritably scratched at her temples. They didn't itch but they bothered her.

"Your madness has passed. You need now only to reorient yourself to the world. I…" he paused. "I cursed you."

She looked up and their eyes met across the table. His eyes were deep like oceans and cold. She would freeze to death before she drowned.

"Cursed me?" It was a pitiful whimper of a sound. She wished she wasn't feeling so weak, like a child learning how to walk again after the ability had been lost. Clumsily.

"The curse of my existence. Of yours… When mortals lay eyes upon us they go insane. It is gentler to ease them of that pain."

"And kill them." She spoke with certain finality. When humans saw Aoshi-sama he killed them.

Except her… but… she was dead too now. He had said so.

A few moments of silence passed before she raised her head. "Is this another thing that isn't really happening or is it real this time?"

He watched her with cautious eyes, calculating. "Yes."

She suddenly felt like she was shaking. "How do I…"

No, she wasn't ready. She wasn't ready for anything. She needed to take ten giant steps backward and then inch forward again to "reorient" herself. She was drowning in confusion, in denial, in… in… everything!

She fisted her hands at her temples. "What if I can't?"

Without warning, she fell backwards. It didn't hurt as she hit the floor, her head making a dull thunk against the floor.

She stared at the ceiling for a long moment before her eyes closed. "What if I just… die?"

He didn't answer her. She felt faint and her vision darkened. She was going to pass out…and then nothing.

He watched as she inexplicably blacked out. She was unduly stressing herself over an irreparable situation. She wouldn't die.

He wouldn't let her.

The evening of the third night when she awoke, she was not in the little room with the futon. There was no table beside her. No cup of blood sat nearby waiting to rescue her from the pain when it became too unbearable.

No.

She was standing.

Her body was, or had been, propped inelegantly against the huge round bulk of a tree trunk. She was surprised she could stand while sleeping. Her tired eyes flickered wide and she glanced around her, confused and tense.

It was a forest.

Dark and wide and… frightening.

She felt small and lost and she could tell before the first signs of unease began to plague her that it wouldn't be long until the pain came. She didn't have much time to get her blood.

Pushing away from the tree she was acutely aware of the bark beneath her palm. Hard and roughly textured, it bit against her soft skin. She didn't stumble forward, she didn't call out; she waited.

There was a distinct uneasy feeling inside her and suddenly she remembered what it was and it made a well of panic inside her burst open. Instead of a rapid thumping in her chest, there was nothing. Not even a dull echo, just an overwhelming hollow sensation. Pressing one hand to her chest she felt for the heart beat she was used to feeling there but felt nothing. There was no steady thumping under her hand, her chest didn't even rise and fall unless she remembered to force the effort.

She wanted her breath to catch in surprise.

She wanted her heart to jump to life and pump wildly in her fear.

Neither happened.

Her head snapped up as something around her shifted. Something in her was different, far more different than the blood, the heart, the breathing… There was a strange buzzing sensation in her head.

What was it?

More importantly… Where was Aoshi-sama?

AN: And there we have Aoshi returned to the story, good as new.